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Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#41

Post by vibrunazo »

Riesling wrote: post #20
jacquesm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More parties being bad for democracy is extremely funny. It would be nice to see a total abolition of parties, in fact in most democratic constitutions the word 'party' is never mentioned. People should vote for other people, not for parties.

> People should vote for other people, not for parties. I would like to take this concept even one step further. People should not vote for other people. They should vote for ideas and concepts.

> They should vote for ideas and concepts.

Isn't that why parties were invented in the first place? I mean, at least in theory.

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#42

Post by soc88 »

VinceGuillardi wrote: post #28
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the Greek situation is rather more complex than that it can be summed up by two parties fucking over the voters. Greece (and a whole bunch of other European countries) has a system of governance and a corruption level that is very different from other EU countries, and as such probably should not have been part of the EU to begin with. Now that they're in Greece is in a position to reap the benefits of that f…

>the end result of which will be a much weaker euro. There are no winners in any of these scenarios, only losers Germany is the winner in this scenario. Having the Euro as a currency is a great boon to their national economy. They were at a trade deficit when they used the DM, but ever since the inception of the Euro, they have been cleaning-up export wise. Germany benefits from the Eurozone as consumers from EU nati…

> They were at a trade deficit when they used the DM

Not in the last ... 30 years. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/germany/balance-of-trade

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#43

Post by Riesling »

vibrunazo wrote: post #41
Riesling wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People should vote for other people, not for parties. I would like to take this concept even one step further. People should not vote for other people. They should vote for ideas and concepts.

> They should vote for ideas and concepts. Isn't that why parties were invented in the first place? I mean, at least in theory.

In a certain fashion, yes. Parties have helped to bring ideas and concepts to life. In a world where it is hard for people to communicate easily, often and in real time, they are probably the best tool available. A big problem of parties is that you always have to buy the whole package. What if you favor a rather conservative standpoint in one area but a more progressive one in another. There is no way you can have that. This is one issue addressed by the "Liquid Democracy" concept for example.

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#44

Post by barrkel »

_delirium wrote: post #30
jacquesm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has political parties, the two dominant ones keep the rest out creating an illusion of choice. It's the worst example of party politics.

Some elections in the U.S. are nonpartisan, meaning that no parties are recognized by the electoral officials, or listed on the ballot. For example, the Nebraska state legislature is nonpartisan, and so are a number of cities' mayors, Houston being the largest. That doesn't keep people from de-facto running as party representatives, though. They can't put their party affiliation on the ballot, but they can say in the…

It's first past the post voting that discourages niche candidates / affiliations. When you only have a single non-transferable vote, it's wasted if you place it on a niche candidate that doesn't get enough votes. So you're more likely to cast your vote for one of the top two or three mainstream positions - or rather, what you think is mainstream, what you think everyone else is thinking, influenced by visibility from media spending etc.

If you have a proportional system, where you can more truly state your preferences yet have your vote count even if your first preference doesn't succeed, you end up with more diversity. Downsides include greater tendency for coalition governments and potentially less clear mandates for decisive governments.

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#45

Post by barrkel »

soc88 wrote: post #42
VinceGuillardi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the end result of which will be a much weaker euro. There are no winners in any of these scenarios, only losers Germany is the winner in this scenario. Having the Euro as a currency is a great boon to their national economy. They were at a trade deficit when they used the DM, but ever since the inception of the Euro, they have been cleaning-up export wise. Germany benefits from the Eurozone as consumers from EU nati…

> They were at a trade deficit when they used the DM Not in the last ... 30 years. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/germany/balance-of-trade

It's true that they didn't have significant trade deficits, but the current trend of trade surplus date pretty much from the Euro - look at the full trend of data from the source you link to, from 1971 to today. It stands out quite clearly.

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#46

Post by rowla »

I voted for the Pirate party here in Berlin, and occasionally it seems their success surprised them more than anyone else.

Right now, both the established political parties and the voters are fascinated by the Pirates. From nowhere to 8 % - that's quite a feat in our slow-moving political landscape. It also means that both the party and those rooting for them are a mix of young people, disappointed voters from both ends of the political spectrum, libertarians and many other factions.

Many Germans are fed up by what is often called a One Party system in disguise, where labeling decisions as "without any alternative" has become Chancellor Merkel's favorite move. There were several large-scale attempts at Internet censorship / filtering (it used to be child pornography yesterday, it's terrorism and copyright violations today, and it'll be something else tomorrow), and more and more people see through the whole theatre.

However, I'm afraid that everyone and their grandmother will project their hopes on a very young and very heterogenous party. There will inevitably be some disappointment.

But then, to quote Groundhog Day: "Something is... different. Anything different is good."

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#47

Post by thirdsun »

stesch wrote: post #34
brazzy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be understood in historical context. Germany has had a very Bad experience with an excessively fragmented parliament in the Weimar republic, which led to constant Government breakups and reelections, paralysing the country politically and paving the way for someone who promised to do away with all that sissy democracy stuff... That's why the 5% threshold was established.

That's what is being taught at school in Germany. But there are a lot or people who say that it wasn't the number of parties, it was the lack of democrats. (Democrats, not the US party. People who support democracy.)

There's truth to both reasons mentioned here and they aswell as several others certainly added up to the failing of the Weimarer Republik. It's not as if you have to narrow it down to one specific reason.

In fact the constituion back then was very progressive and ambitious, even by todays standards, but with the lack of support even in official positions (e.g. Justice, Army sticking with the former structure and personnel) it didn't last very long.

Add to that the people's wide spread opinion of being burdened with unfairly tough first world war reparations and the regular abuse of emergency law ("Notverordnungen", not sure if the translation is correct) and there are a lot of ears listening to the ideas of the NSDAP.

This may be true for most things in life, but if there's one subject that can't be explained with only one aspect or reason, it's the republic of Weimar. It's decline is the sum of several unfortunate developments and circumstances.

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#48

Post by pdelgallego »

brazzy wrote: post #22
muuh-gnu wrote: post #13

In other news, former German president Roman Herzog, member of the (for now) largest party, the Christian Democratical Union CDU, suggested that having new parties like the Pirates entering parliaments is bad for overall democracy because it is increasing political diversity, and should be combated by again increasing the election threshold, which is now at 5%. According to the interview he gave recently, increasing…

This has to be understood in historical context. Germany has had a very Bad experience with an excessively fragmented parliament in the Weimar republic, which led to constant Government breakups and reelections, paralysing the country politically and paving the way for someone who promised to do away with all that sissy democracy stuff... That's why the 5% threshold was established.

That is, imo, a very simplistic explanation of what happened in the Weimar republic. The interwar period were complex and convoluted times

The military overspend during WWI and draconian terms that the winners impose over Germany destroyed the economy of the country, creating a spiral of hyperinflation[1], both led to an inevitable second conflict, as Keynes pointed in "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" that was written many years before the WWII

[1] A great book about Weimar hyperinflation cycle is "When money dies: The nightmare of the Weimar collapse"

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#50

Post by brazzy »

pdelgallego wrote: post #48
brazzy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be understood in historical context. Germany has had a very Bad experience with an excessively fragmented parliament in the Weimar republic, which led to constant Government breakups and reelections, paralysing the country politically and paving the way for someone who promised to do away with all that sissy democracy stuff... That's why the 5% threshold was established.

That is, imo, a very simplistic explanation of what happened in the Weimar republic. The interwar period were complex and convoluted times The military overspend during WWI and draconian terms that the winners impose over Germany destroyed the economy of the country, creating a spiral of hyperinflation[1], both led to an inevitable second conflict, as Keynes pointed in "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" that wa…

I did not intend or claim to provide a full explanation, just explain one significant factor that is relevant to this topic.
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